Digital Marketing, Industry News

Social Strategy Trumps Social Media

Leave a comment

Glint has a question for you today… Would you ever stick your son or daughter in a car, the moment they turned 16, without having any previous driving experience? In other words, would you allow your kid to drive without ever having taken a driver’s education course?

You are probably shaking your head, thinking to yourself, “Absolutely not!” Which is a good thing, it means you’re a responsible parent and you understand putting your child on the road without any experience could mean placing them and other people in danger.

You are probably wondering, how does this have anything to do with social media? Well, while social media isn’t a several ton vehicle capable of going 100+ miles per hour down the interstate, it is still a tool or vehicle of transportation for your brand’s message and should be treated as such.

Every day, we see brands with a ton of potential take charge of their social media accounts (without any previous education) and tarnish their brand. If you don’t remember anything else from this article, please remember this —

“No social media presence is better than bad social media presence.”

This is a difficult concept to grasp because, for a lot of brands, social media evokes a feeling of FOMO (fear of missing out). Brands feel that if they aren’t on every platform or using every tool, they will be forgotten about.

And between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and [fill in the blank], there is a lot to try and keep up with. But, social media and the dozens of tools that have been created to power it, is useless (and at times even detrimental) if you don’t understand how to use it. So, how do you use it? Keep reading, and we will share some of our thoughts on the matter.

How to Use Social Media
In order to get the most out of social media, you need to ensure you have a solid foundation. To use another metaphor, if social media is your tool or rocket that your brand uses for lift off, the creative and messaging associated with your brand is the foundation that the rocket sits upon. The rocket is useless without a solid foundation.

Glint helps our clients ensure they are using proper strategy developed by our experts, that way they are getting the highest return on social media.

More on Social Media Strategy
You may be wondering, that’s great, so how do I design a great social media strategy? Well, in order to design a social media strategy that will deliver a high return, you will need to have a deep understanding of your brand, what you stand for and how you are being perceived.

Something that may sound rudimentary at first glance, but something that actually requires an extreme amount of creativity and experience working with brands — this is an artform called branding and something that Glint is very strong at. Check out some branding work we’ve done.

After we have worked with you on defining your brand, we can then go about designing a social media strategy that is right for you, along with the social media platforms that fit this strategy.

If you are interested in learning more about how to use social media and how to develop a social media strategy that is right for you, please don’t hesitate to connect with us here or call us at (817) 616 – 0320.

Digital Marketing, Integrated Marketing, Traditional Advertising, Uncategorized

How Traditional Advertising Fits In A Digital World

Leave a comment

Ways to Incorporate TV and Print Media into Technology Based Advertising.

When it comes to advertising, maybe you have an antiquated perspective. Don’t be abashed; you invest most of your marketing dollars into traditional forms of advertising like TV commercials, print ads, direct mail, radio spots, and brochures. That’s great, especially if all of these marketing efforts are garnering customers. But like many businesses, traditional advertising may not be as effective as it was for you when you first launched your business. We understand; more than likely you’re not getting as much of a response from your audience as you used to, which may mean that you need to expand your efforts and explore the digital world.

So, you remember a time when people would see your product on TV or in the newspaper and respond to your sales promos immediately. You knew how to get their attention with a powerful image, a catchy slogan and an offer that they couldn’t refuse. That was all it took to draw customers to your product or service. Those were the days when marketing was straightforward and uncomplicated. Now, digital marketing is the medium that businesses are using to catapult them onto a platform where they can be more successful in the marketing world. And if you want to achieve this type of success, you should make it an essential component of your marketing plan; your competition probably most certainly has.

Chances are many of your ideal customers are engaged in the digital age like the rest of the online consumers you’re trying to attract. They’re glued to their mobile phones, tablets and anything with blinking lights, which makes it easier for businesses to attract them on the digital scope.

These days tons of ads are seen via smartphone, facebook, google, digital displays, website banners, viral videos, blogs, and articles, just to name a few. If you want to extend your reach to the infinite amount of customers online that will never see the billboard you just put up, you’ve got to become more connected with digital marketing. We’re not trying to be discouraging; you can continue your traditional marketing campaigns, but be open to merging it with the digital world. If it’s working for you, keep going.

If you’re still a little dubious about the sheer power and influence of digital advertising, you should know that more and more businesses are turning to digital marketing every year. In fact, according to Reuters, marketers spent $72.5 billion on digital advertising in 2016, which is an increase of 22 percent from 2015. Social media platforms like Google and Facebook account for the majority of revenue from digital advertising, and they don’t seem to be slowing down.

Google and Facebook are responsible for the surge in growth of digital advertising, which has digital companies scrambling for the advertising dollars that businesses are willing to spend in the digital world.

For companies that are making the transition from traditional advertising to digital advertising, video is a medium that most use to convey their message. If you notice, the next time you look at a YouTube video, you may have to watch a commercial at the beginning of the video or at intermittent times while the video is playing. What a way to combine traditional with digital!

Now, just because businesses are using digital platforms to display their advertisements doesn’t mean that they’re acquiring customers at record speed. An interesting ad may catch their eye for a few seconds, but if no emotional connection is made, a sale is probably not likely

Digital marketing has shifted the way people perceive advertisements. They’re familiar with the antics that advertisers used on the unassuming customer decades ago. So, you can’t be too blunt, phony, too provocative or sneaky by recycling an old campaign you thought no one would remember. Ads have to draw potential customers in based on what that customer is likely to purchase. If businesses are willing to engage with people, the business will have a better way of understanding what the customer wants and how they are likely to respond.

That’s what’s so amazing about the digital universe; you can measure your impact on your audience by the immediate responses you may get to your advertisements, videos, and posts. Getting feedback and questions about your product will give you a better idea of what will prompt them to buy. Beware of those comments though; they can be brutal. Just be level headed about it. You’ll recover. The main thing is that you don’t give up and that you keep improving.

Remember, every day the consumer is overloaded with brand advertisements that want them to buy their products. So, get ready for the challenge; the competition is fierce! Your objective is to use the digital world to get into their minds, so you’ll know how to convert them into customers.

The traditional advertising that you do through broadcast and print media can now be used with digital ads and content that you create and put online. By doing this, the consumer can find you through organic and paid searches or even stumble across an article you wrote. Keep your social media engaging, and they’ll find you on the popular social networks.

Once they understand your brand, a trust can develop and who knows! Perhaps then, this prospect will make a purchase. For more information on integrating your brand with traditional and digital, visit us at www.glintadv.com or give us a call at 817-616-0320.

 

 

Industry News

Ad Agencies are to Blame… For Everything.

Leave a comment

Most people believe that John Wooden goes down in history as being the greatest basketball coach to ever live and with a winning percentage of .804 and over 10 NCAA championships… well, let’s just say that here at Glint we certainly can’t disagree with this belief. What’s interesting is the greatest basketball coach of all time won 80% of the games he played, which is a mind-boggling percentage but during his 29 years as a college coach, he lost approximately 162 games.

That is a lot of lost games.

In fact, if you were to stack these losses on top of one another, it would equate to 5.5 basketball seasons (years) of straight losses. The point we are trying to make here is that building a championship basketball program is not unlike building a championship brand–– it takes time, it takes patience, it takes resilience, it takes devotion, and it takes the ability to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. And just like a college basketball program must stick together through the highs and lows of their journey towards greatness, companies and agencies must do the same in their journey towards building a championship brand. Both brands and agencies should prepare and expect to encounter rough waters, and when they do, they need to remember they are on the same team.

Here at Glint, we would never take on John Wooden when it comes to coaching basketball, but we know a thing or two about coaching and building great brands–– in fact, since 2000, we have been doing everything in our power to help brands make the best decisions and create the highest ROI. We believe there are a number of skills great advertising agencies must have to successfully build a great brand, but today we are going to concentrate on three core competencies–– Branding, Copywriting and the ability to blend old practices with new ones.

Understanding the Art & Science of Branding
Branding is much more than just a logo or a symbol; it is the art and
science of aligning what you want people to think of your company with what they actually think of your company. It is a promise of what consumers can expect when they purchase your product or service.

At Glint, we are experts at branding, and everything we do begins and ends with the brand in mind. Our attention to detail in regards to branding has allowed us to help build world-class brands and movements like DSG Arms, Think Before You Sleep and Kaner Medical Group. You can read more on the art and science of brand building here.

Writing Dang Good Copy
Bruce Bendinger, one of the world’s greatest copywriters to ever live, said it best when defining copy—

“Copywriting is a job. A skilled craft. Verbal carpentry. Words on paper. Scripts to time. And one more thing. Salesmanship.”

Now, this definition is perhaps a bit romantic/dramatic, but we are an advertising agency, we live and die in the pursuit of creating the perfect ad. Writing copy lays the foundation of the brand and is one of the essential steps of branding, which we discussed in our earlier point. Here at Glint, we strive to write copy that ignites something in the customer, that moves them into action, that evokes emotion and that ultimately get them to bite. You can read more about the process we take when writing copy here.

Merging the Old with the New
While both branding and copywriting are concepts that have been around for ages, advertising and marketing practices are constantly changing. A great ad agency must have the ability to blend the old with the new––merging the old foundational elements of advertising, like branding with the new more innovative practices like integrated marketing, social media marketing and of course Search Engine Optimization.

While new technology allows us easier access to a wide range of audiences and customers, these mediums are useless if we aren’t practicing the foundational elements of advertising and marketing.

Understand What Makes a Great Agency & Together Have the
Patience, Resilience, and Devotion to Build a Great Brand
The goal of this article is to help you understand the skills and expertise it takes to build a great brand so that you can choose the right agency to partner with. If your advertising agency is currently doing the things we mentioned above, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. You just need to trust in the process and remember to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. While John Wooden’s losses were far from pleasant, they ultimately were what allowed him to win 10 NCAA championships.

At Glint, we are more concerned with winning our brands the championship, and that takes both time and patience. Our goal is to be proactive and work through challenges that inevitably come when competitors try to take the lead in the ballgame.

While we may lose the occasional game, we always take the series and ultimately win the championship. If you’re ready to win, reach out to Glint at www.glintadv.com or give us a call at 817-616-0320.

Digital Marketing

Snap Stock Is Out

Leave a comment

Photo Credit: HowToStartABlogOnline.net 

Snapchat, Inc, just released their IPO and people are going crazy over Snap stock. If you haven’t heard of Snapchat by now, then there’s a good chance you’ve been living under a rock. Snapchat is today’s most popular social media application among millennial’s. The app focuses on disposal content that you can share with friends between 1-to-10 seconds, or upload content to your ‘story’ that will stay active for 24 hours. Snapchat was initially created with the sole purpose of exchanging nude photos of one another, and though the app is still infamously known for that, Snapchat offers a way to capture raw moments in life. Most of the moments individuals now share with each other are strange objects, unique scenery, and of course, food. A popular phrase has even been coined, “if you didn’t Snap it, did it really happen?”

But what makes Snapchat so popular? Snapchat encourages sharing personal moments with close friends, despite not physically being with them. Snapchat is widely popular with millennials and centennials due to their love of sharing moments and experiences. Now, combine that attribute with the ability to share 10-seconds worth of content, appealing to the short attention that humanity has developed, is a recipe for success. Snapchat has managed to take all the positive aspects of each big-name social media platform. Further, they’ve incorporated them all into one social media application – photos, videos, filters, emojis, artistic doodles, and text without it permanently being stuck on the web. However, there’s still the option of screenshotting a snap, so think twice before you send that risky photo. Researchers have also found that the way individuals interact accounts for Snapchats success among its users. Interactions are not ‘transactional’ like a text message, or as impersonal as a status update on Facebook and Twitter, but rather more ‘conversational,’ and it has the ability to place users in the exact moment an event occurred.

With all of these amazing features intertwined within Snapchat, some may wonder how does the social media app make money. Snapchat has found an interesting way to disguise ads between Snaps, and stories. Individuals are likely to see ads when they shuffle between stories. However, these ads are not your typical 30-to-60 seconds long. They are shorter, much shorter. They can range anywhere from 5-to-10 seconds long, and the best part is that they can be skipped by users. Contrary to many people’s belief, millennials are less likely to pay for an application than any other generation.

Another reason why Snapchat has become so popular over the years is due to its relevancy. Twitter has an endless stream of tweets, and users often move on to another application before they get a chance to read a tweet from someone they care about. Meanwhile, Facebook feeds are either filled with people that you don’t often consider close friends or click-bait. Click-bait is a coined phrase that describes an interesting title, but redirects to an uninteresting page when clicked. The unfortunate case of Twitter and Facebook is that users spend a lot of time trying to find that small sliver of content that is relevant and interesting to the user. Snapchat is much different. Yes, there is a lot of content on Snapchat that is waiting to be found, but Snapchat allows you to follow, view and receive content from the people you care about. Snapchat even has a section called Discover which is news-like content, and even that section can be editable. Users can select which publications, new stations and TV channels they want to view.

The last reason why Snapchat has become so popular, and probably the most important, the application is just downright fun to use. Users can attach goofy stickers, funky lenses that add a mask, manipulate the structure of your face or add geofilter sliders that indicate which city or location you are in while Snapping. Even the Discover aspect of Snapchat, which is probably the least interesting part, is still more engaging than Twitter Moments – a similar news like attribute.

Team members of Glint regularly use Snapchat, so we decided to conduct an internal survey:

What is it about Snapchat that you like the most?
“I love Snapchat because it allows me to capture raw moments of life. Anyone can record an event and add effects to make it look more appealing, but with Snapchat, the moment itself is appealing; not the effects added to it. It’s authentic and unfiltered. I love using Instagram, but every photo and video I come across looks like a glossy imitation of reality.”

What don’t you like about Snapchat?
“I do not like how you can screenshot users content. I have had friends screenshot embarrassing photos I have sent before, and it would be great if Snapchat could remove that feature. Hint, hint, Snapchat.”

What do you use Snapchat for?
“Initially, I used Snap to send photos and videos, but as Snapchat evolved, so has the way I use it. I now use Snapchat as my preferred method of communication. I use it to for text messages and phone calls. The best part is that the app allows me to add a personal touch to my message specifically tailored for whomever I’m sending a message to.”

Would you ever stop using Snapchat?
“The first step to recovery is acceptance, and I accept that I’m addicted to Snapchat, but I can only see myself stop on the off chance that my friends stop using it. There would be no reason for me use an application if my only form of interaction was viewing other people’s stories. I like sending and receiving content from friends.”

There’s no doubt that Snapchat will become a household name like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It’s interesting to note that Facebook saw the potential of Snapchat just after a year of its creation. Facebook offered Snapchat $3 billion dollars to buy it out, but to many people’s surprise, Snapchat declined the offer. Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion dollars in 2012, and Facebook has made Instagram the number one photo sharing application in the world. Facebook may have had a different plan for Snapchat, but no one is complaining about the potential fate of Snapchat under Facebook control. If you haven’t used Snapchat yet, we encourage you to experiment with your friends, and if we have one recommendation it would be this: if you’re not willing to risk that Snap being screenshotted then don’t send it.